Having previously read “The Perfect Stranger” and only just getting away with the storyline, I was a little worried “The Last House Guest” would be similar. Unfortunately it was - slow, dull, tedious and rather repetitive.
Typical of psychological crime thrillers at the moment, is to create a sense of foreboding using a house as a conduit to suspense and I felt the author just tried a little too hard, to create a tense atmosphere using the rental properties in the story. It didn’t work for me and the whole plot felt rather vague and pointless. Even the intrigue into Avery’s background and her history surrounding LittlePort was a little lacklustre. There’s a lot of descriptive sentence fillers that didn’t really go anywhere and although the story ties together nicely with a couple of twists - that you may or may not have seen coming - it was maybe just a little too late for me.
I couldn’t really get a handle on any of the characters and found them all to be unreliable narrators and rather unlikeable with the only exception being Connor who I felt slightly endeared to. With little depth to Sadie’s character in general, it was hard to feel sorry for her death and to want to see justice done over it.
I still haven’t got around to reading Megan Miranda’s “All the Missing Girls” which I still intend to do, as that has some raving reviews but I’m not sure I’d read any further novels by this author again as I found the contemporary style of writing too slow for my own enjoyment. These are only my personal thoughts and opinions and not what the next reader may find.
2.5 stars rounded up to 3.
Typical of psychological crime thrillers at the moment, is to create a sense of foreboding using a house as a conduit to suspense and I felt the author just tried a little too hard, to create a tense atmosphere using the rental properties in the story. It didn’t work for me and the whole plot felt rather vague and pointless. Even the intrigue into Avery’s background and her history surrounding LittlePort was a little lacklustre. There’s a lot of descriptive sentence fillers that didn’t really go anywhere and although the story ties together nicely with a couple of twists - that you may or may not have seen coming - it was maybe just a little too late for me.
I couldn’t really get a handle on any of the characters and found them all to be unreliable narrators and rather unlikeable with the only exception being Connor who I felt slightly endeared to. With little depth to Sadie’s character in general, it was hard to feel sorry for her death and to want to see justice done over it.
I still haven’t got around to reading Megan Miranda’s “All the Missing Girls” which I still intend to do, as that has some raving reviews but I’m not sure I’d read any further novels by this author again as I found the contemporary style of writing too slow for my own enjoyment. These are only my personal thoughts and opinions and not what the next reader may find.
2.5 stars rounded up to 3.